Unspeakable Macklemore

For no particular reason other than I don't want to start the post with asking what Macklemore may have possibly done, here's a picture of Nicollet Avenue in 1960.

Imagine an entire downtown like that. Not as a grand as a place of tall glass, but much nicer on the street level. It's from the 1960 Survey, a photographic record the Strib took of every block downtown. One of these days it'll be assembled on line, and you'll be astonished at the changes. It's almost as if we swapped one city for another.

NO Here’s a Daily Dot story on which I did not click. Can’t imagine who did.

And here’s a story that sums up how some writers who spend too much time marinating in web culture get disconnected from that reality:

Yes, the foundational expectations and assumptions of American manhood are being revised by My Little Pony fans.

ARCHITORTURE Why do we like ruins? The Tate has an exhibition on the subject of the romance of rubble. In America we tend to clean up our ruins and make them attractions, as with the remnants of the old Mill on the Mississippi. Previous generations would have wondered what was wrong with us. It’s just some old walls; what’s the appeal? But in Europe they would have been venerated by artists as a reminder of the transience of things and the tragic march of time. (“March of time” is a cliche, and not always accurate, but “the tragic amble of time” doesn’t have the same ring.”

Related: Meet the movie goer who refuses to watch movies without reading spoilers first. This I do not understand. When I first saw “Citizen Kane” and we heard the word “Rosebud” pass from Kane’s lips, the fellow in the row behind me said to his partner “that’s his sled.” I wanted to turn around and throw a Coke in his face. I was present during the first showing of “Empire Strikes Back” at the Southtown; no one who walked out gave away the big twist to the people standing in line. It just wasn’t done. Now some people apparently crave to know the twists before they see the movie, so they can study the film as it unrolls, looking for hints and clues. Why not just watch it twice, for heaven's sake?